BAY AREA

"In 2012, BART was awarded a $2.5 billion contract... and has since been working to design and produce new train cars." --Eliza Baker

​On January 19th, BART released the first of their 775 new and improved cars.​BART, whose very first cars were released in 1972, first had the idea of new cars in 2009. In 2012, BART was awarded a $2.5 billion contract by Bombardier Transit Corporation and has since been working to design and produce new train cars.

These new cars include a number of features that will make it more accessible to the average pedestrian. Perhaps the biggest change is the addition of an extra door on each side of the train, making it three on each side. The idea behind this is that there will be less crowding around each door as people enter and exit the cars.

Because of the constant complaint of noise, the doors themselves were also improved upon. Instead of going out from the train and then again to the side, the new doors move from one side, in and out, not unlike a Minivan’s sliding door. In making the doors more airtight, BART says the new design will successfully decrease the amount of ear-shattering noise from outside the train.​Along with the new doors, there will be 50% more priority seating available for the elderly, disabled, pregnant or injured.These new chairs are higher up so as to have more room for luggage underneath the seats, leaving more room on the floor for people to stand. New cars will also include wider isles, higher ceilings, and new handholds for people of all heights. These updates will especially make the travel for people in wheelchairs easier and more efficient.

​Despite the promise of new cars in 2017, the release of said cars didn’t actually occur until early into the next year. During the testing of the cars, a few errors were found. The faults were everything from unsafe and jarring breaks to minor bike rack faults. And after a series of negative articles pointing out the obvious defects in July of 2017, BART delayed the release of the new cars once again.​But what do these new cars actually mean for people in the Bay Area? The main idea behind the upgrade was to get people moving in and out of the cars more efficiently and quickly.​BART officially started in 1972, carrying passengers around Concord and Walnut Creek. Though there have been a few different updates since BART opened, over two-thirds of the old cars were from the original few years—whose ridership has multiplied by roughly 25 times since its inauguration.​In 2017, there was an average of 429,000 BART trips on the weekdays, a big contrast from 1972’s 17,000 weekly. On average, there are 126 million trips annually, with a solid 87% of on-time arrivals. BART owns a total of 46 different stations and 112 miles of track. Up until January of 2018, there were 699 train cars. 74% of the operating costs are paid by passenger fares and fees.

The average Public Transportation vessel is a host to many different bacteria, and BART is no exception. Original BART seats featured cloth until replaced by vinyl in 2011. Because thousands of people ride BART each day, and each car is reportedly sanitized only once every 120 days, there is obviously a high risk for bacteria to be found on BART cars and around the stations. The hope is that the new cars will be cleaner than the old ones, and carrying less harmful bacteria.

BART has other plans apart from the new train cars, including a number of improvements to make travel easier and safer. There will be new rails, repairs for old and corroded tunnel walls, as well as a series of replacements for the train control equipment. BART plans on releasing the rest of the cars over the next four years, the number of releases steadily growing as the years progress.